The Tasmania chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) hosted a How to Pitch Webinar in July this year, to prepare children’s book creators for our August PitchFest. Author/illustrator, Christina Booth, and publisher/author, Mark Macleod, of Dirt Lane Press, presented engaging talks on how to catch and hold a publisher’s attention.
Our PitchFest took place from 17-22 August 2020. 35 aspiring, emerging or developing children’s book creators pitched a total of 57 manuscripts. Most pitches took place via Zoom, which gave participants the opportunity to receive 15 minutes of face-to-face feedback, and to ask questions of their assessors.
Participating publishers were Maryann Ballantyne, (Wild Dog Books, Melbourne) Sophia Whitfield, New Frontier Publishing (Zooming from London); Mark Macleod (Dirt Lane Press, Hobart); Clair Hume (UQP, Brisbane); Nancy Conescu (Berbay Books, Melbourne) and Davina Bell (Allen & Únwin, Melbourne, written critiques only). Literary agent, Karen Tayleur, also provided assessments and Christina Booth (Hobart) provided feedback on illustration portfolios.
SCBWI Tasmania would like to thank our critique coordinator extraordinaire, Fiona Levings, and our Sydney-based Regional support team of Deb Abela, Marjorie Crosby-Fairall and Susanne Gervay. Thanks too, to SCBWI TAS joint coordinator, Christina Booth, and her family, for allowing us to use their cast-iron wifi to host the Zoom pitches.
Anne Morgan
Joint Coordinator, SCBWI TAS